Emissive Armor?

[Fyron]

If that one armor component has a lot fewer hit points than the other armor components, it makes sense. It is the weakest part, so why not target it first?

I should also point out that the armor systems are bound to be integrated somehow, so the weakest part is likely to fail first, not Last. It makes 0 sense to say that one chunk of the hull is CA, one is EA. If that were the case, then the EA ability would not be in effect when CA gets hit, but it is. Given that, whatever the EA is doing is always getting hit and worn down, so it would be more likely to fail first.

[ December 19, 2003, 08:01: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[oleg]

I don't think MM can change anything here. He would have to allocate variables to store damage to individual components instead of just one per ship. Now, if you have 20+ components per each ship, memory requirement and processing time will go through the roof in the late game battles. I would rather leave it as it is than to have SEIV run on ultra fancy computers only !

[Asmala]

It's logical that EA is destroyed first. In stock game it's bigger than standard armor, less durable and in order to reflect energy back to space it have to be located in the ship's outermost layer.

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Trust SJ. He is quite right on this.

I can't see anybody disagreeing with him on this. I just tried to explain why the heavy pseudo armor is better than the light even if the light has more hit points. Cyrien explained excellently what I tried to say.

[Fyron]

EA is actually destroyed (usually) Last when using standard armor, cause it has more hit points...

[Asmala]

...right... so it's not logical then.

[Ed Kolis]

Actually isn't standard armor 30/35/40 HP at TL 1/2/3 while emissive is 30/40/50 at TL 4/5/6? So at tech level 4 your emissive armor would be likely to get hit first, at level 5 your armors would have an equal chance to get hit, and at level 6 your standard armor would be likely to get hit first.

I like to think of emissive armor as a thin coating around the ship, so it's still on the outside in "real-life" terms, and it only works the way it does due in the game due to SE4's quirky rules about which components get hit first If you want to model it this way in the game, make EA 5kT with 15/20/25 hitpoints, that way it tends to get hit first and you'll need a lot to make sure you can keep up the emissive effect as your armor wears down... so you'll probably want to reduce its cost as well

What's really weird is how scattering and stealth armor work together... one reflects and the other absorbs, so shouldn't they cancel out? (Unless they reflect and absorb different frequencies of light...)

[narf poit chez BOOM]

one absords what the other doesn't reflect.

[ December 19, 2003, 19:40: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]